Organisers on Friday urged fans to ensure they acquire match tickets for next year's tournament through authentic sources.

This caution comes against the backdrop of the organising body's decision to cancel match tickets being offered for resale on the auction website, eBay.

The move, said World Cup commercial manager, Stephen Price, is being taken "to protect the integrity of the event and its pricing structure and policy for ticketing, which was designed to be as fair as possible and to afford everyone who wishes to attend a match the chance to get a ticket.

"We have been monitoring the sale of match tickets on eBay and have had significant success in tracking the individuals who are offering these tickets and who are, as such, indulging in an illegal activity.

"The 2007 World Cup is therefore exercising its legal right to cancel all these tickets."

The tournament's senior legal counsel, Derek Jones, added that since late August, when applicants started receiving notification of which matches they had been allocated tickets for, there has been an increasing number of tickets and packages being offered for sale on websites like eBay.